Cobalt Family Consulting Welcomes Carsten McCarter, LAC, to the Team

Written By Amanda Thomas

Cobalt Family Consulting is proud to announce that Carsten McCarter, LAC, has joined our team, bringing decades of experience, compassion, and leadership in the field of addiction recovery and family support.

Carsten is best known for founding Lean In Recovery, a program that integrated attachment approaches into addiction recovery and elevated the standard of care across the field. For more than a decade, he guided individuals and families through some of the most complex challenges related to severe mental illness and substance use. His clinical integrity, presence, and commitment to long-term healing have had a profound impact on countless lives.

After taking well-deserved time away from program leadership, Carsten now begins the next chapter of his professional journey with Cobalt. His lived experience as both a founder and operator provides unique insight into the challenges families and treatment programs face. He will play a pivotal role in helping families understand the recovery process and supporting clients with empathy and clarity that comes from having walked the path himself.

Carsten’s addition strengthens Cobalt’s mission: to provide families with clinically sound guidance, ethical care navigation, and meaningful, sustainable recovery.


“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Carsten to our team,” said Amanda L. Thomas, MPhEd, LMFT, Co-Founder and CEO of Cobalt Family Consulting. “His leadership and lived experience will deepen the way we serve families and strengthen the recovery journey for so many.”

Amanda Thomas

About Amanda

 

After spending time in wilderness therapy with adolescents, I noticed parents weren’t getting the needed support. Their children were doing transformative work, and undergoing amazing change. But parents remained the same, unchanged, and approached the reunion often with anxiety and lack of confidence. After some time, perhaps a year, and seeing this happen repeatedly with a number of families, I felt my calling into marriage and family therapy to ensure the entire family has the appropriate support throughout the entire journey. And to ensure a meaningful and mutually beneficial reintroduction.

 

In 2007, I took my combined life experiences in sports coaching, camps, outdoor intervention programs, psychology and marriage and family therapy to establish my private practice working with families around the country to heal relationships and get guidance in mental illness and addiction in their children.

 

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, I studied psychology and management at Gettsyburg College. During that time, I worked with teens and young adults at summer camps teaching water skiing, wakeboarding, and camping. I also went on to coach volleyball for clubs and universities in Australia and New Zealand.

 

In New Zealand, I studied the psychological outcomes of outdoor interventions with the normal population for my Masters at University of Otago, Dunedin. What I discovered is the relationships between the adolescents and the guides had the greatest impact in creating positive change and improving their self-esteem. I also learned how gender differs when it comes to treatment. For example, boys might experience a bigger gain but they can lose that gains very quickly while girls have significant changes but not as big as boys and maintain them longer after the interventions.

 

Upon completion of my Masters, I returned to Pennsylvania to be assistant coach for the men's volleyball team at Juniata College while also facilitating experiential programming & managing the facilities for an environmental center.

 

I moved west to pursue a career in wilderness therapy after I participated in an outdoor educators NOLS trip in Arizona. There, I was a field guide at Aspen Achievement Academy and went on the be assistant director of family services where I worked with parents during the reunion process facilitating multi family groups and developed and implemented family assessments.

 

Getting my Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) degree at Denver Family Institute informs a large part of how I help families and couples. I worked under Jim Thomas to complete my coursework while simultaneously working for a company to develop their aftercare and transition programs throughout Colorado and nationally.

 

Accreditations and degrees

Board Member of Idaho Association for Marriage and Family Therapy

Masters in Physical Education - Research studying Outdoor interventions and Self-Concept

Licensed Associate Marriage and Family Therapist

 

 

Personally I love living in a small town with all of the awesomeness that it has to offer being near lakes, rivers, skiing, gardening and the culture of the west. I am a dog lover and food eater!!!

http://www.integrativeapproachtx.com
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